The Latest: Atlanta mayor's race too close to call

(AP Photo/John Bazemore). Atlanta mayoral candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms is greeted by a well wisher as she arrives for an election-night watch party Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, in Atlanta.

(Curtis Compton/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP). Mary Norwood makes a statement as she arrives for her election night party at the Park Tavern in the Atlanta mayoral runoff on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017, in Atlanta. Voters in the Atlanta mayoral runoff...

Bottoms leads Norwood by a margin of less than 1 percent, which is the threshold where the second-place finisher can request a recount under state law.

Norwood told reporters she intended to seek a recount.

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8 p.m.

Polls have closed in a runoff election between two Atlanta councilwomen vying for the city's top job.

Voters were deciding between Mary Norwood, who calls herself an independent, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, the chosen successor of outgoing Mayor Kasim Reed.

A victory for 47-year-old Bottoms would continue a run of African-American mayors that began with Maynard Jackson in the mid-1970s.

A win for 65-year-old Norwood would give Atlanta its first-ever white female mayor and end the Democratic Party's hold on the office since 1879.

Transportation, public safety and affordable housing are among the most pressing challenges facing the city's new mayor.

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4:15 a.m.

Atlanta residents are heading to the polls in what could be a historic mayoral election.

Voters in Tuesday's runoff for Atlanta mayor are deciding between Mary Norwood and Keisha Lance Bottoms.

If Norwood wins, Atlanta would have its first-ever white female mayor.

If Bottoms wins, it would continue what has been called the city's black political machine, which has dominated the mayor's office since the mid-1970s.

Atlanta's last white mayor, Sam Massell, left office in 1974 and was succeeded by five African-American mayors in the next four decades: Maynard Jackson, Andrew Young, Bill Campbell, Shirley Franklin and current Mayor Kasim Reed.

Regardless of who wins Tuesday's runoff, Atlanta will have its first female mayor since 2010, when former mayor Franklin left office.

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